The Dahlia
by Vena Grey
Summary: AU. Everything it represents has to do with beauty and elegance. SessKag, some InuKag. Part of Phantom Night.


**The Dahlia  
**An Inuyasha fiction by Vena Grey

_Disclaimer: The characters in this story are not creations of my own genius. The plot is mine, however._

_Disclaimer parts II and III: There are a lot of Twilight-like elements in this, though it's not a crossover. And, obviously, I don't own Twilight. Stephenie Meyer does._

_This is the only songfic in the Phantom Night series. Evanescence owns Snow White Queen. Oh; yes, I _am_ completely obsessed with Evanescence right now, thank you very much. ;)_

_Summary: AU. Everything it represents has to do with beauty and elegance. SessKag__, some __InuKag. __Part of Phantom Night._

_Here's the third installment to Phantom Night! Like the first two, this is a new pairing for me. I'm only just getting into SessKag, and everything I've read thus far has been amazing; I hope this adds up at least a little._

_Well, here you are!_

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My name is Kagome Higurashi. I'm twenty-two, single, and currently living in a small flat on the shrine my family has owned since the Feudal Era five centuries ago. I have long, black hair, blue eyes, and am of a normal height and weight. Oh—and a flower controls my life.

The dahlia sat in a singular ornamental vase, the same one it had rested in for the past five years. Tonight wasn't the first time I marveled at the blood-red-and-black flower; it was as if it possessed a soul of its own, being as real as day, and having stood strong and healthy for half a decade since I received it when I was seventeen. I was always at peace when I had it with me, and, whenever I would look deep into the dark petals, a hypnotic aroma would send me into an incredible dream. I almost never left home without it, finding ways to slip it into my purse or wear it in my hair.

I would never forgive myself for the time I tried to kill it. The first time I became suspicious of the everlasting flower was a few weeks after it had been given to me, never having bloomed or wilted in the slightest. I removed it from the vase and left it alone under the stairs to the shrine; and that's when the nightmares began. A pair of blood-red eyes hidden under a pale silver hood would follow me, and a terrible poison would seep into every fiber of my body; eventually, I would wake up paralyzed, unable to move for several hours. After the third straight night of the same dream, I recovered the dahlia from under the stairs—it was still fully intact, untouched by the dust and rats that lived underneath my house. I placed it in the vase and gave it purified water every day, and it's sat next to my bed every night since. Never once since my first suspicion have I ever woken up tired.

More incredible than the flower by an eternity, though, was the man who gave it to me. I hardly remember the night…just that it was unusually clear. There was only a small crescent of a moon in the sky, and most of the stars were obscured thanks to the vast ocean of city lights Tokyo produced. I was reading a classic Bulgarian novel for my History of Literature class, when an unusually cold breeze blew into my room, carrying an amazingly seductive scent with it. I looked up and saw only a flash of silver before I blanked out entirely, and woke up in a tree somewhere deep in the forest.

* * *

_Stoplight lock the door  
__Don't__ look back  
__Undress in the dark  
__And hide from you  
__All of you_

**----rewind: five years**

Strangely enough, it didn't surprise me so much that I was about thirty feet up, resting against a thick deciduous branch; what surprised me the most was the fact my clothes had been removed, and I was resting in what looked like a thin, black nightdress with a man with silver hair and yellow eyes not three feet away from me. I gasped when my vision cleared and I saw my clothes lying in a heap on the ground below, and pulled my legs in to shield myself.

_'SHIT! This guy stripped me!' _My thoughts panicked, even though I was clothed at the moment. But the dress had to have gotten there _somehow._

"Aah, you've woken up. Good, this wouldn't have worked had you been unconscious the whole time." The man's face remained emotionless, yet I could detect the tiniest hint of a smirk in his tone.

Out of surprise, a thousand questions exploded in my mind, a few even escaping out of my mouth.

"Who are you? Where am I? Why am I in this dress? Why am I here? Why did y--" I demanded, my blue eyes wide in fear. Before I could question any more, though, my captor clapped a hand over my mouth and sent a murderous glare my way.

"Stop this incessant questioning, girl! Do you want all of Japan to hear you?" His long, claw-like fingernails dug into my skin, and I winced.

_You'll never know the way your words have haunted me  
__I can't believe you'd ask these things of me  
__You__ don't know me_

My breathing quickened, and the man in silver removed his hand. I got a good look at him; he was wearing fine white silk, his hair fell past his waist in a curtain of silvery white, he had two purple stripes on each side of his face, and his eyes were a haunting shade of amber that couldn't possibly be human. His intoxicating scent assaulted every breath I took, and, despite my situation, I felt that I'd never seen a more beautiful man, human or not.

"You never answered my question," I suddenly stated.

"This Sesshoumaru feels no need to answer you." So Sesshoumaru was his name. It felt unusual as I rolled the title around in my mind.

"At least tell me why you kidnapped me, then! I think I deserve to know _that_ much." His eyes narrowed, and I inhaled a little more sharply than I meant to.

"You demand a lot for someone who is about to die." His tone was still completely stoic while his eyes flashed red.

My next breath was so sharp, I nearly stopped breathing. My eyes shot open and I pulled back into the tree as far as I could, as if I believed it could save me.

Sesshoumaru laughed a humourless laugh. A clawed finger brushed back the hair from one side of my neck, tracing the curves down to my collarbone in an agonizingly slow manner. His fingers felt like ice, and I shivered as his equally cold breath brushed against me.

_You belong to me  
__My snow white queen  
__There's nowhere to run, so let's just get it over  
__Soon I know you'll see  
__You're just like me  
__Don't scream anymore my love, 'cause all I want is you_

Frigid lips soon replaced his fingers, and, as they drifted down to just below my pulse, I heard a satisfactory sigh. His hand moved to pin my shoulder against the tree, while his tongue danced below my pulse for a split second before a slicing pain shot through my body.

I tried to look down, but it hurt; yet, it wasn't long before I felt something hot slither over my collarbone and between my breasts like a snake. I could see part of the stream glow red in the moonlight—it was my blood, I knew it. Sesshoumaru hadn't moved from his position at all, and I quickly found it futile to try and shove him off. His body was like granite, frozen in position. Yet, I didn't have enough strength to remove my hand from his shoulder.

_Wake up in a dream  
__Frozen fear  
__All__ your hands on me  
__I can't scream, I can't scream_

His other hand was on my thigh, preventing me from moving. All I could do was sit and stare at the moon, which gradually began to grow fainter and fainter. I began to feel lightheaded, and my thoughts didn't come to me as fast. _'Sesshoumaru was right…' _I thought. _'I do ask a lot of questions for someone who's about to die. I'd have never guessed he was a vampire.'_

In a sick way, I wondered how much blood he'd taken.

_'Like it matters anyway.'_

My head fell against the hand that was on his shoulders. My lips instantly felt numb, pressed against a sliver of icy skin.

_'Damn. I'm going to fucking _die.'

_I can't escape the twisted way you think of me  
__I feel you in my dreams and I don't sleep_

The next thing I knew, I was back in my room, and Sesshoumaru was sitting in my window. I blinked a few times, noticing that it was still night; but the moon was nearly full, now, which meant I'd been asleep for over a week. A small smile came to my face. I wasn't dead, but I felt cold everywhere except for behind my chest, where a black-and-red dahlia was keeping me warm. I laid a finger on the flower tentatively, as if it would vanish at any moment.

"Why didn't you kill me?" I asked. My voice felt tiny and weak.

"There was no need to." He responded quietly, and, as I opened my eyes fully, I noticed that my brother Souta had fallen asleep in the chair next to my desk. He must've been watching me, waiting for me to wake up.

"Then why are you still here?"

_You belong to me  
__My snow white queen  
__There's nowhere to run, so let's just get it over  
__Soon I know you'll see  
__You're just like me  
__Don't scream anymore my love, 'cause all I want is you_

He didn't answer me.

"Don't loose that flower. You'll regret it if you do." He then rose quietly from his perch and leapt onto a nearby tree, then another. He was quickly swallowed by the darkness.

The flower began to pulse against my chest for a solid minute, re-assuring me of its presence. I stroked the red and black petals, and, each time I did, the flower radiated a little warmer for a second. I smiled weakly, and was eventually lulled to sleep by the routine. The flower kept me warm that night, though I was numb nearly everywhere else.

* * *

After my family had fretted over me for a few days, I requested a vase for the dahlia. My mother didn't ask me why, but obliged, happy I was returning to normal, albeit slowly. I didn't eat or drink much for several weeks after Sesshoumaru kidnapped me, and, though my family did ask me where the bite mark on my neck came from, I didn't mention anything. It wasn't as though the real story was believable. 

The dahlia told me to tell them that I'd been sleepwalking. I did, and they believed it, since there had been a couple incidences of sleepwalking in my childhood.

_I can't save your life  
__Though__ nothing I bleed for is more tormenting  
__I'm loosing my mind and you just stand there and stare as my world divides_

Once I'd returned to full health, I never heard the dahlia's voice again, nor did I ever feel its radiating warmth at my bedside. The only things I had to document my strange encounter were the scar on my neck and the black dress he'd given me. I didn't even keep my memory of the night…as time passed, my memory of Sesshoumaru faded, and the dahlia became more black, though it never wilted. I eventually forgot his name, as well; everything, up until I couldn't remember at all how I'd gotten the bite-mark-shaped scar at my neck.

I eventually found a boyfriend, named Inuyasha. Naturally, he asked where the scar came from; but I couldn't tell him. I didn't even know, didn't remember. He, strangely enough, didn't ask me about the dahlia, merely regarded it with suspicion.

* * *

**fast**** forward: five point five years----**

I felt the flower advising me to wear the black dress the night after my wedding with Inuyasha. I did, and I wore the flower in my hair the first time we made love. I felt warm, but it wasn't from the flower.

Inuyasha kissed the scar. I shivered, but not from the cold.

The dahlia pulsated five times before I felt the seemingly-everlasting flower shrivel behind my ear. I stopped kissing Inuyasha for a moment to remove the blossom, which began to quickly decay and was soon nothing more than dust in my hand.

My hand slipped through Inuyasha's long, black hair as I looked up. The man in silver was in my window for a split second before turning around, vanishing into the night like he had all those years ago. As the wind blew the dust from the dahlia over the bed sheets, that seductive scent filled my senses for a moment as I heard a whisper, faint as the breeze:

_**You belong to me.**_

_You belong to me  
__My snow white queen  
__There's nowhere to run, so let's just get it over  
__Soon I know you'll see  
__You're just like me  
__Don't scream anymore my love, 'cause all I want is you_

**_Fin_**

* * *

_Wow. That was undoubtedly the darkest story I've ever written. _

_Sesshoumaru as a vampire…__heheh.__ I wouldn't mind getting bitten by him…x))_

_Well, how'd I do? I know it wasn't exactly SessKag _romance_, but hey, I never said it would be fluffy. But still, tell me what you thought! It's twelve thirty in the __morning,__ I'm exhausted, and would absolutely love to wake up to a few fresh new reviews. _

_-Vena_


End file.
